Open MIC Advisory Board

Farnum Brown, PhD (Chairman and Founder)

Farnum Brown is Chief Strategist and lead portfolio manager for Arjuna Capital, a sustainable wealth management platform. As the founder of Open MIC, Farnum pioneered investor interest and activism on the issues of privacy, access and openness on the Internet. For the past 27 years Farnum has managed investment portfolios for many of the leading progressives in the music and film industries. He has served on the Boards of Directors of the Future of Music Coalition, the Public Media Company, and the Art of Cool Project. He holds bachelor's, master’s and doctoral degrees in philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Jonas Kron is Senior Vice President and Director of Shareholder Advocacy for Trillium Asset Management LLC. With over fifteen years of experience in shareholder advocacy, Jonas is responsible for leading and coordinating Trillium’s extensive advocacy program, which works to engage companies on their environmental and social performance. His advocacy work includes direct communications with company leadership, investor education and awareness, shareholder proposals, and public policy advocacy at the municipal, state and federal levels. Jonas is a member of US SIF's Policy Committee. As a recognized legal expert in the field and a leader in shareholder advocacy, Jonas regularly represents Trillium in the media, at public events, and with clients. Prior to joining Trillium, Jonas was an environmental attorney and public defender as well as outside counsel to many socially responsible investment organizations. Jonas holds J.D. and Masters' degrees from Vermont Law School.

Steven C.F. Anderson is President and Executive Producer of APL, Anderson Productions Ltd. Steve is a television and web content producer, documentary filmmaker, and communications consultant. He has served as a creative force behind many commercial, cable and public television projects. Steve has also distinguished himself as a consultant who specializes in guiding and collaborating with nonprofit organizations, unions, governmental agencies and international NGOs. He also serves as Managing Director of the nonprofit website, InfrastructureUSA.org, focused upon public policy issues and citizen engagement.

Open MIC Resource Council

Angela Siefer has been working on digital inclusion issues since 1996. Beginning with a University of Toledo sociology graduate school assistantship coordinating a regional community technology network, she then moved onto serving as the Executive Director of the Ohio Community Computing Network distributing funds to and supporting community technology centers. Angela has been involved with the Broadband Technology Opportunity Program of the National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) through participating in creation of two successful Sustainable Broadband Adoption (SBA) grants, implementation work on OneCommunity’s SBA grant (Connect Your Community) and serving as an NTIA consultant researching and writing best practices for the NTIA Broadband Adoption Toolkit. She coordinated two broadband conferences for OneCommunity, one for the Schools, Health, & Libraries Broadband Coalition and one for the Kansas State Broadband Initiative. In 2013, on behalf of OCLC, Angela led an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) funded project supporting communities piloting Building Digital Communities: A Framework to Action. In early 2014, she conducted research for the Center for Digital Inclusion at the University of Illinois for another IMLS funded project - Inclusive Gigabit Libraries. She helped found and is currently the Director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance.

Brandi joined Color of Change as media justice director in 2014. She comes to Color Of Change from The Center for Media Justice, an organization fighting for media rights, access and representation for marginalized communities. Previously, Brandi worked at Safer Foundation, crafting policy recommendations and statements on workforce development and prisoner reentry. She holds a B.A. in History from Agnes Scott College, and a J.D. from University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School.

David Robinson, Principal, Upturn

David Robinson is a Principal at Upturn, a team of technologists based in Washington DC. Upturn works alongside social sector organizations to shape the impact of new technologies on people’s lives. David leads the firm's work on automated decisions in the criminal justice system, and recently developed a coalition statement and research report on the civil rights impact of "predictive policing" products. His other areas of focus include broadband privacy, gig economy issues, and Internet Freedom. David is also a Visiting Fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.

Ian Mitroff, President and Founder, Mitroff Crisis Management

Dr. Ian Mitroff is an internationally recognized crisis management expert and widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of crisis management. He specializes in crisis prevention, strategic planning, and the design of ethical work environments. Known for his thinking and writing on a wide range of business and societal issues, Dr. Mitroff has published nearly 400 papers and articles and 30 books, including Swans, Swine, and Swindlers: Coping with the Growing Threat of Mega-Crises and Mega-Messes and Why Some Companies Emerge Stronger And Better From A Crisis.

Dr. Mitroff is Professor Emeritus at the USC Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, an Adjunct Professor at Saybrook University, San Francisco, and an Adjunct Professor in the School of Public Health at St. Louis University. He is also a Senior Investigator at the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management at the University of California, Berkeley, and a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He is the president and founder of Mitroff Crisis Management.

Peter Micek, Global Policy & Legal Counsel, Access Now

Peter Micek is Global Policy & Legal Counsel at Access Now and Lecturer at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. Peter leads the Access Now policy team's business and human rights work, advocating for a more rights-respecting telecom and tech sector. Through direct corporate engagement, norm-building at the United Nations, and investor advocacy, Peter helps Access Now to promote transparency and accountability for digital rights online. As Lecturer at Columbia on internet governance, Peter’s course focuses on the structures and processes that determine public policy in the digital age. Peter also sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Cybersecurity.

A lawyer by training, Peter completed a JD cum laude at the University of San Francisco School of Law, and in 2010 published "A Genealogy of Home Visits," critiquing surveillance of at-risk communities, in U.S.F. Law Review. As a law student, Peter defended independent journalists and engaged in Freedom of Information litigation at First Amendment Project. For five years, in his native San Francisco, Peter led youth and ethnic media development at New America Media, and was Web Editor at KALW's daily radio program Your Call. Peter studied political science and journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. He is licensed by the state bars of California and New York, and has no cats.

Todd O'Boyle, Deputy Director, Next Century Cities

Todd O’Boyle serves as Deputy Director of Next Century Cities, where he is overseeing the launch of the new Democracy on a Gig initiative to promote innovative citizen engagement strategies in gigabit cities. He also works to shape strategy and organizational direction and policy priorities.

Prior to joining Next Century Cities, former FCC Chairman Michael Copps picked Todd to launch his Media and Democracy Reform Initiative at Common Cause. In that capacity, Todd directed public interest communications policy campaigns, including successful efforts to guarantee the Open Internet; protect and promote competition; and stop Comcast’s bid to acquire rival Time Warner Cable. Regularly quoted in the national, local, and specialized media, as Program Director, he also managed legislative and regulatory outreach, grassroots engagement, and development relations.

Todd has experience in the academic and political worlds, having taught communications policy and worked in grassroots campaigns for nearly a decade. He has a Ph.D. in Public Policy and a B.A. in German.